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Cancer screening that's as simple as spitting

IN FUTURE, testing for some cancers could involve simply supplying a little
spit. The trick, researchers say, is detecting precancerous cells in samples of
sputum or urine.

Most human cancers originate in the sheets of cells, or epithelia, that line
the lungs, bladder, colon and other organs. Cells are constantly sloughed off
the epithelium’s outermost layer. Normally cells in this layer don’t divide. If
they do, it’s a sign that cell division has gone haywire—a crucial step in
the development of cancer.

Now Ron Laskey and his colleagues at Cambridge University have found a way to …